


something left to save

by ScottieIsImpatient



Series: if you left me behind [7]
Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Angst, Depression, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:01:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29832927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScottieIsImpatient/pseuds/ScottieIsImpatient
Summary: Malcolm has a nightmare. Madeline worries.
Relationships: Madeline Reed & Malcolm Reed
Series: if you left me behind [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1894453
Comments: 3
Kudos: 5





	something left to save

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't mean for this series to get so long, whoopsies.
> 
> This one is set, idk, maybe six months before "i'd follow". I don't have a set time frame for this series so it gets a bit messy.
> 
> Warning: mention of non-canonical past death of a major character. This fic won't make sense if you haven't read the others.

Malcolm was having a nightmare.

She knew this because she could hear the soft sounds of thrashing and sobbing, broken words through the thin walls.

Madeline sat up and drew back the covers carefully so as not to wake Levi. She needn’t have worried, though, for he’d heard the sounds too. He turned on the bedside lamp and gave his girlfriend a look of concern.

As Madeline tip-toed into the hallway the thrashing noises began cease, but the inaudible mutters continued. Whatever Malcolm was seeing, whatever he was saying, it was not good.

“Malcolm?” whispered Madeline, pushing open the door to her brother’s room. Her eyes still adjusted to the dark, she could see Malcolm’s outline among the tangle of blankets, his arms flung out and his head tilted, rolling occasionally. He mumbled something else which she couldn’t make out.

Waking him could cause more harm than good, Madeline knew, especially if the nightmare was so bad it had him screaming. But she couldn’t just leave him there.

“…don’t go,” Malcolm whispered in his sleep, as if aware of her internal dilemma.

Madeline gently dragged the desk chair out and sat down. She would stay, she decided, and keep watch while he slept.

Footsteps came from the hallway, moments later followed by a bleary-eyed, stumbling Levi. “He alright?” the blond man slurred.

“Just a nightmare,” Madeline told him. “You go back to bed.”

“No, you go. I’ll watch him.”

“Levi-”

“If he wakes up and starts panicking, I’ll holler for you. But c’mon, Maddie, when was the last time you had a full night’s sleep? Uninterrupted?”

Both of them already knew the answer. Madeline chewed her bottom lip. Sleep did sound rather appealing at the moment… but how could she so much as drift off, with her brother suffering right next door? “I’m staying,” she said firmly.

Levi sighed, looked like he was about to argue further but realized it was pointless. “I’ll make some tea,” he said instead, and disappeared into the hall.

For a good minute all was silent, save for the rummaging in the kitchen downstairs and Malcolm’s ragged, uneven breathing. Madeline leaned against the desk, eyes on her brother.

Since the one-year anniversary of Commander Tucker’s death he hadn’t been doing well. They’d been required to fly out to San Francisco for the occasion; Malcolm had dusted off his Starfleet uniform at his own insistence, saying it would look better for Jonathan Archer.

Madeline still worried if letting him had been the right choice.

The entire crew of the Starship Enterprise, both new and old, were gathered. The old senior officers had stood at the front just behind Archer as the Captain gave a speech to commemorate his fine Chief Engineer, now gone from this world. As each word had echoed from the microphone Malcolm’s face had grown paler and paler and his stick-straight poster began to waver until, to Madeline’s horror, he’d taken one shaky step forward and promptly collapsed.

Dehydration was the culprit. Dressed in the thick jumpsuit under a hot beating sun, combined with Malcolm’s weakened physiology from months of personal neglect, eventually his body – and mind – just couldn’t take anymore.

When he’d awoken in the San Francisco Starfleet MedCentre his first words had been ones of guilt: “I’m sorry for disrupting the ceremony.”

He’d been visited by old friends he hadn’t seen face to face in over a year. Travis Mayweather, now a Lieutenant himself, along with Hoshi Sato, the linguist who, like Malcolm, had quit Starfleet after Tucker’s death. She’d become a linguistics teacher instead. Madeline remembered reading about her accomplishments.

Captain Archer visited, of course. He hadn’t stayed long. Perhaps after over a year of being physically apart, the sight of each other in the flesh awakened bad memories in the two men. Madeline couldn’t remember seeing this kind of tension while they’d talked through a screen.

Phlox came in too, though there wasn’t much to say. He had been in constant contact with both Malcolm and Madeline since the incident. Though he’d returned to his regular duties aboard _Enterprise,_ the doctor still found time to meet with them remotely once every month or two.

And then, most surprising of all, was Commander T’Pol.

Madeline had not been around for that particular visit, having been needed at work, but Levi was. Levi was pleased, perhaps a little surprised, at whatever the two of them talked about. “I didn’t listen in,” he’d claimed, “but Malcolm really did seem more at peace after she left.”

Madeline was jerked from her thoughts by a loud shout, then the hollow thud of knuckles hitting a wood headboard. She lunged to her feet and kneeled at her brother’s side in an instant.

“Stop!” Malcolm yelled.

“It’s okay, Malcolm,” Madeline reassured him, wishing more than anything she could wake him from the horrors keeping him captive.

Malcolm’s body twitched; his left arm flung to the side, his legs kicked, and suddenly he lurched into a sitting position, panting hard. Sweat drenched his nightclothes on the chest and along the back of his neck. His hair looked as if he’d just been standing in the rain.

“Malcolm?” Madeline asked. She allowed the note of panic to seep into her tone, too tired to fight it anymore.

“Oh, god.” Malcolm’s breath came in shallow gasps as he curled his knees to his chest and hunched in on himself, sobbing.

Madeline seated herself gently on the edge of the bed; she placed a hand between Malcolm’s shoulder blades, moving it in soft circles. How she longed to just gather her brother in her arms and squeeze him until he begged for air, but Malcolm was the type to need a slow build-up into such forms of affection, even among family. Always had been.

The stream of light coming in from the hallway was suddenly obscured. Madeline glanced up to see Levi standing in the doorway, holding a cup of tea in each hand. She motioned for him to leave them on the desk.

“I can’t do this,” Malcolm’s voice came, muffled by his arms.

“Do what?” Madeline asked softly. Deep down, though, she already knew what he meant.

With a sniffle, Malcolm lifted his head. “Not without him,” he continued. “I can’t bear it, being weighed down so much. I can’t do it anymore.”

Madeline shuffled closer and brought her other hand to rub up and down Malcolm’s arm as he hiccupped and shuddered.

“What am I going to do?” he whispered.

“Oh, Malcolm.” Madeline reached for the strewn blanket and draped it around her brother’s shivering form. “It’s hard, I know.”

“You don’t know.” His tone gave the impression the words were meant to be hostile, but he was too weak, too exhausted, to get that across.

Madeline nodded solemnly. “You’re right, I don’t. I’m sorry.” Leaning in, she wrapped her arms around Malcolm in a grip loose enough that he would be able to weasel out if needed and rested her head on his shoulder. “But you’re strong, Mal. You can get through this.”

A few moments passed, then Malcolm was leaning into the embrace as well. Madeline felt hot tears begin to seep through her nightshirt.

“No-not strong enough,” he retaliated. “The pain… h-hurts too much.”

“I understand. But one day-” she drew back to look her brother in the eye “-one day, Mal, it’ll hurt less.”

“Why can’t it just go away?”

“You, of all people, should understand that grief doesn’t truly go away, does it?” Hesitantly, Malcolm nodded. “It stays with you, always lingering. One never asks for it. One never wants it. But sometimes we’re just dealt a real shitty hand of cards.”

Both Reed siblings allowed a chuckle to escape their lips.

“If that’s the case,” Malcolm said softly, “then I suppose I- _we’ve_ been dealt the shittiest.”

“I agree entirely. Now, come.” Madeline shuffled her way off the bed and stood up, one hand outstretched. “Levi’s brewed us some tea. Let’s go put the telly on to keep our minds away from this shitty world, how about it?”

Malcolm smiled and accepted the offer to stand. “I’m, uh, sorry if I woke you,” he hastened to apologize once they were under the soft hallway light.

Madeline shook her head and took his hand, squeezing it tenderly. “You needn’t apologize for that, Mal. You know there’s no way I would let you suffer alone.”


End file.
